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We've all mourned the plight of the honey bee in America, and Europe has been hit hard, too. Everything from fungi to cell phones to stress has been blamed for the startling losses -- from 30% to 80% of many commercial beekeepers' hives have been wiped out.

After a lot of urgent research conducted in the past few years, some tests on dead bees have shown that 99% of the ones examined had a high level of clothianidin in their system -- the chemical sold under the name "Poncho" by Bayer AG in Germany. It's used as a pesticide for sweet corn and rapeseeds.

According to Bayer, the chemical typically sticks to the seed and doesn't get into the air, but an "extremely rare" "application error" resulted in its release. Germany didn't take any chances though -- honeybees are vital to the health of many crops and the country has banned the entire category of pesticides.

But that doesn't end the bad news for Bayer, whose imidacloprid has been blamed in South Dakota and France for widepread colony collapse disorder. The chemical was used for oilseed rape and sunflowers. In South Dakota, farmers are suing, whereas the French government has banned the chemical (but just for sunflower seeds). The company maintains its products are safe, as long as they're applied correctly. I must admit, I'm skeptical. How many times will we accept the "user error" argument before we start scaling back the use of harmful chemicals? If they're killing bees, what might they do to humans who eat the foods from them? Bayer could face some major reduction in its €2.5 billion pesticide (aka "Crop Protection") market if more countries follow suit (and if more Americans like me begin to demand that our farmers stop using bee killers on their crops).

Bayer blamed for honeybee losses, clothianidin banned in Germany originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 30 May 2008 17:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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